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Adult Children

9 months ago

When Love and Money Get Tangled: How to Tell if You’re Financially Enmeshed with Your Adult Children

Most women over 60 I talk to love their children deeply and want the best for them. That often means offering help, sometimes financial help, when they’re struggling. After all, what mother doesn’t want her child to feel secure? But what happens when the giving…

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10 months ago

When “All I Want Is for You to Be Happy” Turns Out to Be a Big Ask

When I held my first newborn, I whispered, “All I want is for you to be happy.” It felt like the most generous wish I could make – no demands about who he should become, no rigid life plan to follow. Just happiness. Decades later, I realized that was a much bigger expectation…

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10 months ago

Making Peace with Your Adult Children When Things Haven’t Turned Out the Way You Expected

Let’s just say it: This isn’t how you thought it would be. You didn’t imagine your child avoiding your calls. You didn’t picture a strained holiday dinner, or worse, an empty seat. You didn’t expect silence, tension, or unspoken resentments. And yet – here you are…

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10 months ago

Helping Adult Children Financially – Creative Ways to Help

In this blog series, we’ve covered many ways to help adult children financially, including education, childcare, housing, and retirement. In this final post of the series, we’ll cover some other areas that can also be used to help: investment accounts, life insurance and annuities, real estate…

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11 months ago

Did You Parent from Your Own Past Pain? Forgive Yourself and Move On

Parenting is hard. Parenting while carrying your own childhood wounds? Even harder.
Many of us brought our pasts into motherhood without even realizing it. We didn’t set out to repeat old patterns or project our pain – but sometimes, that’s exactly what happened…

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11 months ago

Why I Don’t Charge My Kids Rent to Live at Home

In a world where everything comes with an enormous price tag, I’ve made a deliberate choice not to charge my six kids rent to live at home. It’s not because I’m against teaching responsibility or preparing them for adulthood. It’s because I believe in giving them the kind of support…

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11 months ago

Finding Calm in the Storm: Holistic Strategies for Parents Over 60 Supporting Adult Children with Emotional Issues

Faith, a caring mother in her 60s, faced one of the hardest challenges of her life. Her 51-year-old daughter and 18-year-old grandson were living with her. Although Faith loved them deeply, their presence created ongoing stress and constant conflicts in her home. Over time…

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11 months ago

5 Ways to Tell if You Are Being Too Financially Generous with Your Adult Children

The U.S. economy expanded 1.6 percent in the first three months of 2021, compared with 1.1 percent in the final quarter of 2020. The economy shook off some of the lingering effects of the pandemic as consumers started spending again…

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12 months ago

Why Mom Guilt Lingers – and What to Do with It Now

There’s a certain kind of silence that falls over the house when your kids are grown. No more soccer practice. No more school pickups. No more late-night snack runs. But there’s often something else that lingers in that silence: guilt. For many moms, especially those…

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12 months ago

Father’s Day: Celebrating Men’s Role in Raising Healthy Children

In honor of my father, who died in 2020 at the age of 93, I’m opening a conversation about men and boys. My father was typical of his time, showing love for our family by working hard and providing for us. He often did not have much time for his children. We became…

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